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How Millions of Gamers are Already Paying a Subscription to Play Call of Duty

Despite recommendations from analysts that Activision should create a monthly subscription model for Call of Duty, the publisher has staunchly refused, stating CoD's multiplayer will never be pay-to-play. The truth is, Activision doesn't have to create a subscription model, because every year millions of gamers are already spending subscription-level dollars to play Call of Duty online.

In an analyst conference call yesterday, Activision reported some revealing numbers about the Call of Duty franchise: thanks to annual installments followed by a string of DLC map packs, the average player now spends $76 each year on Call of Duty games -- and that number is rapidly growing.

According to Activision, Call of Duty: World at War launched in 2008 and sold 9 million copies and 9 million downloadable map packs. Modern Warfare 2 shipped in 2009 and went on to sell 19 million retail copies and 11 million map packs. Black Ops, released in November, has not only sold 23 million copies, it has moved 18 million $15 map packs.

There are now 20 million active monthly Call of Duty players online, Activision continued -- a number that eclipses the reported 12 million World of Warcraft subscribers worldwide. And while the $76 average annual spend on Call of Duty is roughly half that of a full year WoW subscription (anywhere from $155.88 to $167.88 annually depending on the plan) it's safe to say a significant portion of Call of Duty: Black Ops' online players picked up all four of the game's map packs, spending $80 in the process. Added to the $60 price of the game, that's $140 -- just about the cost of a full year in Azeroth.

And the average annual Call of Duty spend will likely increase dramatically with the release of Modern Warfare 3. Set for release on November 8, MW3 will launch with Call of Duty: Elite, an online social network that will offer a premium subscription plan.

Spy Guy says: Also to be factored into the equation are the costs of running WoW (servers, maintenance, creating new content, customer service, policing) versus the costs of running CoD. I'd wager the profit margin is significantly higher for CoD. So, officially CoD is not a subscription-based game, but if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck...